Zigzagger
Stories

Manuel Muñoz (Author), Helena María Viramontes (Foreword by)

9780810148956

Paperback / softback, published 15 June 2025

184 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.666 kg

"Zigzagger is a book to read if you want to see another California, one that might be unfamiliar but is home to millions. It heralds the arrival of a gifted and sensitive writer." —Los Angeles Times

MuÑoz’s breakthrough collection, reissued with a new foreword by author Helena MarÍa Viramontes
 
Manuel MuÑoz’s first collection of stories goes beyond the traditional family myths of Mexican American literature and the image of California’s Central Valley as a lush world of rural tranquility, instead exploring the constant struggle of characters against their physical and personal surroundings. A teenage boy learns the consequences of succumbing to the lure of a town outsider; a young farm worker attempts to hide his supervision of a group of children from the town police; a father must expose his own secrets after his son is found murdered in a highway motel. Experiencing conflicts of family and sexuality and the pain of loss and memory, the characters in Zigzagger seek to reconcile themselves with the rural towns of their upbringing—places that, by nature, are bordered by loneliness.

Acknowledgements
Foreword

ANCHORED
Zigzagger
The Third Myth
TiburÓ
n
Museo de Bellas Artes
The Unimportant Lila Parr
Swallow

NO BLOOD
Campo
The Wooden Boat
Loco
By the Time You Get There, By the Time You Get Back
Anchorage
Astilla


WAITING TO BE DANGEROUS
Not Nevada 

Fotito
Waiting to be Dangerous 

Zapatos
Good as Yesterday
Everything the Boy Told You  


THE HARBOR OF HANDS
Hombres
Skyshot
Teatro JaponÉ
s
Monkey, SÍ

Clima